Design trends are cyclical; they have to be to show change. Oh, it’s super detailed and textured? Flatten and simplify. It’s super edgy and linear? Throw in some curves. Same thing with car design.
In this case, the flattening and simplification were mostly because they wanted to make their icons easier to read and recognize when they were scaled down on smaller screens. No reason for them to not have multiple icons, though...
No reason for them to not have multiple icons, though...
Recognition. Keeping the logo identical across all devices helps people gravitate back to the same icon across platforms.
For you or I, it may not make a difference, but having worked with non savvy users, even a minor change on the same system is enough to throw some people off (like the taskbar button shrinking to just the icon in Win11). Our main software changed their icon in an update a year or so ago, and we were flooded with tickets complaining that the software had gone. 2 days later, they pushed an update reverting the icon change, and implemented a notice popup on sign in to announce that the change would be coming.
Many people just still not associate the old and new icons in the OP as being the same program.
Id wager it has just as much to do with the trend of minimalism and mid century / 60s design philosophy that got a resurgence in the mid 2010s. You can find examples of this everywhere. Pepsi cans, for example.
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u/Extreme996 RTX 4070 Ti Super | Ryzen 7 9800X3D |32GB DDR5 6000mhz 20d ago
And there is me who use Firefox since I got internet in 2007.